Art and Value: An Essay in Three Voices

I. When, through the power of emblems, I revealed to him fantastical cities formed from desire and fear, the great Khan baffled. Everyone else comes with politic accounts of maneuvering threats or the chance for precious goods. But me? I tell tales that arrive like stray thoughts to an idle man seated by the doorway of his home, taking in a little fresh air of an evening. "What does that serve for you, then, all that traveling?" he asks ("A che ti serve, allora, tanto viaggiare?" [Calvino, Le Città, 25]).II: There are scenes in Premchand's Godān that persist in your memory. One concerns the young, motherless widow, Jhuniyā; her lover, Gobar; and Gobar's parents, Horī and Dhaniyā. Abandoned by Gobar, the pregnant ..